


for whatever it's worth

by takecourage



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Endeavour Morse, Drunken Confessions, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Drinking, Human Disaster Endeavour Morse, Injury, Insecurity, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Unhealthy Relationships, Yearning, endless yearning, more red flags than the beijing olympics, peter jakes hates it here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takecourage/pseuds/takecourage
Summary: "The stars spin into the sky and the clouds part over Oxford. It’s so quiet Max feels like he and Morse could be the only people left alive. And if it’s going to be like this, then he’d take it over everything in a heartbeat."summer love, and how quickly it all goes wrong.
Relationships: Max DeBryn/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 16
Kudos: 24





	for whatever it's worth

**Author's Note:**

> said "i'm fine" but it wasn't true  
> i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you  
> \- taylor swift, cruel summer
> 
> (for ian)

Max looks up at the bright, endless, blue sky and the sun that turns Oxford into gold. Sunlight pools around his garden, turning all the colours electric; vivd red and heady pink and shining green and dazzling white. The cluster of yellow blossoms by the garden gate are turned to beacons, bright against the soft, light wood. In the distance, he can just make out the streaks of grey that mean rain is coming, but he doesn’t care. Not now, not when he’s stood in his garden, surrounded by flowers, blazer and bowtie almost carelessly (almost) tossed over one of his garden chairs, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, and the top few buttons of his shirt undone. How can he even begin to care about something as small as _rain_ when the whole world is glowing with summer? Everything feels just right, even down to the scent of the flowers, light and sweet, and mingling with the smell of freshly cut grass drifting over the ivy-covered fence. He smiles to himself as he carefully prunes the roses that climb up the back of his house, deep pink petals against rough red brickwork; the past few months had brought nothing but storms, both literal and metaphorical. The red roses at the bottom of the garden had all snapped clean in half (he had toyed with giving one to Morse, just as a little something to brighten up his flat, but backed out at the last minute—he might have taken it the wrong way), but now? Now with the sun and the heat and the blue sky, stretching out forever, it felt like a bad dream, fading faster and faster with every breath. All he had to get him through those long months was hope, and now he feels as if he doesn’t need it, not when everything seems so… good.

Max carries on tending to his garden, feeling something like bliss, as the sun starts to slip down the horizon, the sky turned the soft, rich blue of summer evenings. His hands are scratched and there’s soil smudged on his shirt, but he doesn’t care. That far off rain never reached Oxford, so why should he? The golden glow of the afternoon is replaced with cool blue, and Max feels at peace. He looks up at the sky; little wisps of cloud, tinged pink by the slowly setting sun, and he smiles, not just to himself. He briefly disappears into his house and returns with a bottle of whisky and two glasses. He sets the glasses down on the little wrought metal garden table, and carefully pours a measure in one, a double in the other, and sets the bottle down. He’s done this so many times the rings from the bottom of the glasses, the bottle, are permanently etched into the paint. He sits down. He leans back. He takes a sip of whisky, relishing the burn in his throat. He waits.

The garden gate creaks open as he’s pouring himself another drink. An unmistakeable lightness spreads through him, filling him from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, like the sun has risen again.

He blames the drink.

Morse, still in a full suit that hangs off him like it’d rather be somewhere else. Morse, with his hair he takes great pains trying to lie flat (Max would know) turned curly with the heat. Morse, with his eyes brighter and bluer than the summer sky.

“You took your time,” Max says lightly, holding out the double whisky towards him. As he takes it, his bony fingers brushing Max’s, Max discreetly looks him up and down, looking for any glaringly obvious injuries. It’s just force of habit at this point—Max has been woken up too many times by someone hammering on his door; Morse leaning against the doorframe, legs shaking, clutching his stomach, his arm, his head, white as the driven snow and panic in his eyes. Max always means to get angry, but he can never quite get past frustration. Frustration because, yes, it’s late, and yes, he was asleep, but mainly because he told Morse to _just be careful_ the last time, and the time before that, and on and on and on. But Max still brings him inside as quickly as he can, sits him on the edge of the bath, cleans his wounds and stitches him up again.

(“Your bedside manner is awful,” Morse says, trying not to look at the cut on his shoulder Max is currently stitching up. Max knows he’s trying not to look because although his head is turned away, his eyes keep darting towards the cut, the thread pulling through his skin, Max’s hands. His face is paper-white, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.

“Yes, well, my line of work doesn’t really require it.” Max gently reaches up and tilts Morse’s head back until it bumps against the wall. “Look at the ceiling for me.”

Morse chuckles softly, his smile hazy and unfocused. “I suppose not.” He does as he’s told for about thirty seconds, before he makes a tiny noise of pain as Max pulls the thread slightly tighter and instantly looks at him, as if for reassurance, steadily holding his gaze.

The room feels so much smaller, so much warmer. “I thought I told you to look at the ceiling,” Max says, barely above a whisper. He’s suddenly painfully aware of just how close they are; he can feel the heat coming off Morse, can see his pupils, blown wide, and _God_ , have his eyes always been so _blue?_ He takes a shaky breath, trying to breathe him in. Like blood and oranges. Max takes it and locks it away, deep inside himself. Then Morse’s hand is resting, trembling, on his hip and he forgets how to breathe completely.

“This is easier.” His voice is so soft, slightly afraid but so tender.

And Max feels an ache inside his chest so strong he has to look away)

They have an unspoken understanding that Max won’t haul him off to the nearest hospital. He kicks himself about how stupid he’s being every single time, yet he still doesn’t do it. There’s something in those blue, blue eyes that makes him swallow his pride and just pour them both a drink instead. There’s something about _Morse_ that has turned him into a complete fool.

They sit and drink in silence for a while, watching the final few seconds of daylight erupt in glorious technicolour across the sky before being engulfed by the night. Max can just make out Morse in the low light; bathed in blue, the highlights of his face picked out in the silver of the moon and the shadows painted in navy. He takes a long sip of his whisky, hoping the burn will distract from the familiar ache in his chest.

Morse shifts around in his seat, his knee briefly brushing Max’s. “We can’t—” His voice cracks. He clears his throat. “We can’t keep doing this.” He stares at the garden gate so intensely Max half-thinks he might be trying to set it on fire.

“Why not?” He sips his whisky. A tiny part of his brain is panicking, but the rest of him is genuinely interested as to whatever he’s going to come out with.

“Because… Well, because…” He smooths his hand over the hair at the nape of his neck, still staring at the garden gate, and Max smiles.

“Hardly illegal, is it?”

His gaze drops to ground and he seems to shrink in on himself. “Well, not _this_ , but—”

“Do you like coming here? Sitting here? Drinking with me?” He stretches his leg out a little so his knee is resting against Morse’s. “Staying with me?”

Morse stays still for a moment, then he nods. Such a tiny, shy movement and it means the whole world.

“Then why should we stop? If you like it and I like it.” Morse looks up at him, eyes cautiously alive, a tiny smile playing on his lips. “You can let yourself be happy, Morse. It’s not going to hurt.”

The stars spin into the sky and the clouds part over Oxford. It’s so quiet Max feels like he and Morse could be the only people left alive. And if it’s going to be like this, then he’d take it over everything in a heartbeat.

Max is sat on his sofa, probably slightly drunker than he ought to be, listening to Morse (who is sat on the floor, clearly not having got over his aversion to furniture) try to tell a story and end up telling twelve without ever finishing the first, gesturing with his glass, a drop of whiskey splashing over the rim and running down his wrist, leaving a trail in shining gold as it catches the lamplight. Looking at Morse—this Morse, with his tie loose, top button undone, jacket hanging up in Max’s hallway, his shirtsleeves rolled up, the freckles on his forearms, and the grin on his face—hearing his suddenly excitable voice, Max feels that same warmth and that same ache. The warmth from his whiskey and Morse’s honest-to-god _giggling._ The ache from the soppy smile on his face and realising just what a fool Morse has made him.

What an awful, beautiful secret to keep.

“What’s wrong?” Morse asks suddenly, cutting himself off from his unbelievably tangled web of a story, his head tilted in a way that reminds Max of a fox.

“Oh, nothing.” He knocks back the rest of his whisky in a single gulp, wincing as he tries to disguise a cough. It’s not a quick drink.

Morse rolls his eyes, two twin spots of pink in his cheeks. He looks alive. So wonderfully alive. “What happened to you can let yourself be happy… Morse?” He pokes himself in the chest when he says his name, and Max can’t help but laugh.

He can’t help a lot of things around Morse.

The early morning sky starts to seep in through the curtains, washing the bedroom in a perfect half-light; it could be anywhere. These two bodies, tangled together and blissful, could be anyone.Max could be anywhere, could be anyone, but instead he’s in Morse’s arms, Morse’s face pressed against his back. It’s too warm in this bedroom, the windows firmly shut against any kind of morning relief from the heat, and his head is pounding. Morse mumbles something in his sleep, holding Max tighter, and Max decides that maybe this isn’t so bad.

He knows, he _knows_ , that if (when) he falls back to sleep, Morse won’t be there when he wakes up. He never is. And he knows that this can’t last forever. Whatever _this_ is, it was born beneath clear skies, between bright flowers, with a bottle of whisky and the scorching summer sun. It was born when Morse first eased open the garden gate, edged his way around dancing yellow flowers, and fell into Max’s waiting arms. And like those flowers, it won’t last through the winter.

The ache in his chest matches the ache in his head.

Despite his better judgment, Max closes his eyes and tries to force the inevitable out of his mind. He focuses on the feeling of Morse against him, wishing he could just turn over and look at him, just for a second or two, so he can pretend this is what’s normal. It feels silly, like a child playing at husband and wife, but it’s just dark enough to get away with pretending. He leans back into Morse’s touch ever-so-slightly, and hopes he’s still there when the sun rises.

He, of course, is not.

&

A week of paperwork and cloudy skies without the release of rain and whisky so cheap it’s borderline undrinkable (unless you have a particularly deep reservoir of self-hatred; something Max doesn’t apparently have much of a problem dipping his toes into at the moment), he finds himself sat at his garden table, pouring himself a whisky that, had he ordered it at the pub, would’ve cost more than the cab fare home. The evening air is still and sticky, humid with no occasional breeze to serve as respite. Everywhere Max goes, people would talk about a storm coming and how badly they needed it. What they needed, most likely, was something to do. Send the kids away for a day to the leisure centre or the park or to the pictures, and make lasagna and have sex on every available surface and then some, instead of dusting and counting the bumps on the walls and thinking about breaking their own bones. Turn to drugs for an afternoon and see how fast they can swim up the canal.

Christ, the heat is starting to get to him.

The heat and the humidity, teaming up to reduce the population of Oxford to a bunch of rambling idiots. How very English.

The flowers are looking a little weaker, their leaves yellowing almost imperceptibly around the edges despite Max’s best efforts. Like they’re so afraid of dying, to the bite of a September morning or the darkness of a December sky, they decided to get a head start. 

The garden gate, still framed by the bright yellow flowers, stays firmly shut.

He should plant more yellow flowers. Daffodils, pansies, sunflowers, that sort of thing, so that when it’s inevitably too cold to sit outside, waiting and drinking, he won’t have to associate the colour with just the garden gate opening, the rush of warmth, Morse’s jacket hanging up next to his in the hallway. Sometimes, under the pretence of anything from getting a new bottle to closing the curtains in his curtain-less kitchen, he leans against the wall and looks at their jackets hanging next to each other; like they live together. Like they have that sort of casual intimacy every single day, the kind that lends itself to things becoming theirs and not remaining forcefully separate. What he wouldn’t give.

But, obviously, that will never happen. Max resigned himself to the inevitably of it all ending almost as soon as it started. And it still hurts — he’s not exactly fantasising about wedding bells; just being able to hold Morse’s hand would be nice. Christ, he’d even take sitting slightly too close in the pub at this point. What’s arguably worse is that when whatever _this_ is ends, he’s going to have pretend to just be a friend, just a colleague, without the promise of shared whisky and a shared bed in the evening to get him through the day without slamming his head against a brick wall. The weather will get colder and he’ll get the cold shoulder—no more late-night laughter and soppy smiles, no more Morse murmuring _kiss me here and here_ and Max only being too happy to oblige, no more hastily closed curtains. No more secrets.

Max is learning a lot as of late. Mainly that he fucking _hates_ secrets.

He just wants things to be easier. The front door instead of the garden gate. Broad daylight instead of darkness. Years instead of months. And he feels awful for thinking it; ungrateful, almost. He should just try and make the most of it while it lasts. But it all feels so hopelessly complicated and the more he tries to untangle everything, the worse it gets, the more it aches. Even trying to ignore everything that could go spectacularly wrong through _no fault of their own_ , Morse by himself is an absolute disaster of complications. The constant push and pull is driving Max insane—he’ll be stubbornly silent and withdrawn for days and then suddenly he’s looking at Max from under his lashes and Max thinks some variation of _oh for fuck’s sake_ and tries to not feel just a little hurt when he leaves hastily afterwards. Logically, he knows full well Morse just wants a quick fuck, but he can be so… tender sometimes, so genuinely caring. And kind. And funny. Not just clumsily funny either, Morse is razor sharp and lightning quick and he can make Max laugh so hard tears come to his eyes. And other times he just straightens his tie and leaves. It’s like getting emotional whiplash.

The garden gate creaks open and Max forgives everything in a heartbeat. Like the fool he is.

Morse is in a good mood, joking and laughing, taking up space even before he gets drunk. Max is so quickly drawn in it’s not until he’s hanging up Morse’s jacket that he realises something is off.

He can smell the remnants of something sickly sweet, like artificial lavender and vanilla, clinging to the collar. He tells himself he doesn’t care and that it’s absolutely none of his business. He pours himself another drink. He doesn’t care. He looks from his glass to the bottle and back again and takes a swig from the bottle. He doesn’t care.

Maybe it’s the combination of the whisky and the rare, genuine good mood, but Morse is being uncharacteristically affectionate, resting his head on Max’s shoulder and his hand on Max’s thigh, pressing feather-light kisses to his cheek, his neck. He even moves Max’s arm so it circles his own shoulders and nestles closer.

“What’s brought all this on, then?” Max asks, even though he already knows. He doesn’t have to be a detective to figure it out.

“You.” Morse grins, eyes glittering.

“I find that hard to believe.” He can’t stop the cynicism leaking into his voice—hopefully Morse doesn’t notice it. Which, he immediately realises, is a stupid thing to hope for. The man notices things for a living.

“Why?”

Max resists the urge to make a terrible joke about letters of the alphabet and instead gives a kind of weak shrug.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” Morse says in a suddenly clipped and distinctly upper-class accent, clearly mocking someone. Max just isn’t sure who.

“Precisely.”

He rolls his eyes hard, grinning again when Max flicks him on the back of the head. “What!” He sounds scandalised, his eyes wide in faux-innocence.

“That what they’re letting you get away with these days?”

“Shut up.” And then Morse is straddling him, pulling his hands to his waist, and the room is suddenly very quiet. “Take me to bed?” He says, his voice velvet, his fingers trailing down Max’s chest, his gaze darting to Max’s lips.

Max is, after all, only human.

The morning sunshine streams in through the gaps in the curtains, grazing over the bed and hitting the wall, hanging in a perfect frame of gold. Max stretches out, the bones in his shoulder cracking. He lets his eyes close again, grateful to have those first few seconds where he can trick himself into believing his bed isn’t empty. If he tries, he can imagine Morse lying next to him, feel the soft heat of him, hear his deep and even breaths. Somehow, it’s easier today than ever. It feels real—like he wants it so badly he wished it into existence. God, what an absolute fool he is.

He opens his eyes.

“Morning.” Morse smiles sleepily, his eyes half-open and hair messy, the covers practically pulled up over his head. Max’s heart stutters at the sight. If he could live in this moment forever, he would.

“You’re still here.” Max wonders if he’s still asleep, dreaming this. It wouldn’t be the first time. He resists the urge to pinch himself, just about.

“Is that a bad thing?” Morse asks, suddenly much more awake, propping himself up, the covers falling to his waist.

Max looks at him with a sudden lump in his throat. The way the sun holds him; his hair burnished in bronze and hints of gold, his eyes brilliant and Max can pick out every individual colour in them (all that blue and those flashes of green and yellow, like a summer garden), his skin shining. Max tries very hard not to let his gaze drop lower. He wishes they could meet in sunlight—the thought of Morse lying back on his jacket in the garden, sleeves rolled up and hands behind his head, eyes closed and that soft smile on his face nearly finishes Max off altogether.

“Not at all.” Morse sinks back into the mattress, smiling again. He’s looking at Max in a way that’s so unashamedly tender Max almost wants to look away (almost). “I won’t get used to it.”

Morse’s gaze travels from Max’s eyes to his lips and steadily further down. “To what?”

“This.”

His eyes suddenly snap back to meet Max’s. “Why not?”

“You always go running off.”

(The first night of summer and its stark contrast to the first morning after. The warmth of the evening, the silver glow of the moon, the burn of the whisky, his hands knotted in Morse’s hair and Morse’s nails scratching down his back; the chill of an empty bed, the weak light of the sun, the pounding in his head, and the great nothingness that stretched out on all sides.

Max forced whatever hurt he felt into a box and locked it away.

June turned to July turned to August. With every morning, the box broke open far too easily and it steadily started to hurt more until he couldn’t control it and it became part of him. He should be used to it, that ache, but what he has, in this bed, in this garden, feels too ephemeral and entirely too strong to get used to)

“I thought you wouldn’t want me to stay.” He barely whispers the last two words, as if it’s an afterthought, or as if to save face. Max knows all about that.

“You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you,” he says softly. Morse looks at him like he’s the only thing that matters in the vast expanse of the universe, smiling in such a way that Max thinks his heart might burst.

Morse shifts closer, winding an arm around Max’s waist, and kisses him. The ache in Max’s chest transforms into something entirely sweeter, lighter, as he pulls away and touches their foreheads together.

“I… Kiss me again?”

And Max does. And again and again and again.

&

August crawls into September; the long, scorching days of summer hiding in the afternoons and the icy bite of November slinking around the streets, looking for the heat, every other time. The streaks of grey on the horizon inch ever closer. The night comes much faster, with no ceremonious explosions of colour, just the sun slipping away and then suddenly, darkness.

The frosty morning air claims a few flowers, mainly roses and peonies, and the yellow flowers remain stubbornly blooming, which is starting to feel more and more like a personal insult to Max. The garden gate, of course, remains shut — the catch might actually be in danger of rusting over at this point.

He doesn’t sit outside, at his garden table, with two glasses and a bottle of whisky, waiting. There’s not much point. It ended, whatever it was. Inevitably.

Max learns something else. Accepting the inevitable doesn’t mean it’s going to hurt any less.

He’s not exactly shocked when the someone hammering on his door at god-knows-when ends up being Morse.

He smells overpoweringly of smoke and booze and is bleeding just on the verge of badly. Max toys with the idea of sending him away for half a second, then he sees the pain in Morse’s eyes and gestures for him to come in.

From the look on his face, he probably isn’t going to make it to the bathroom, so Max puts him on the kitchen counter. He looks ridiculous in a sweet sort of way.

“How is it always you?” Max asks as he rolls back Morse’s sleeve. It’s not as bad as it could be, or even as bad as it has been. It probably won’t even scar. “People’ll start thinking you do it deliberately.”

A pause. Max tries very hard not to read into it. He deals with the body, not the mind.

“Why’d you always help me?” Morse asks, his eyes hazy. He sounds far more bitter than he has the right to. And far more drunk.

“I can stop if you want,” Max answers lightly, doing his best to skate around Morse’s bad mood.

“Maybe you should.”

Max pauses, the alcohol-soaked gauze halting in mid-air. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He presses it to the cut gently, tightening his hold on Morse’s wrist as he instinctively tries to jerk away from the pain. “I know, I know,” he says in his best attempt at being soothing.

“Your bedside manner is still awful,” Morse says, softer.

“Still don’t need it,” Max replies flippantly. He’s not doing this again.

Morse watches him with the kind of drunken intensity that can only be brought to the forefront after being kicked out of the first pub and the second one closing. He only hopes he’s not blushing.

For a while, there’s no sound but the rasping of tape on gauze, and the occasional car passing by. It’s pitch black outside, any silver light from the moon or the stars dies on the top of the clouds that make up September skies, and the light inside, however warm, still feels too cool and clinical for the way Morse looks at him. He finishes and gestures for Morse to get up.

“Max?”

“Morse,” he says flatly. He is _not_ doing this again.

He swallows hard. “Sorry.”

Max genuinely thinks he’s misheard him. “What?”

“Sorry. And thank you.”

“Who are you and what’ve you done with Morse?”

He laughs humourlessly.

A pause.

“Do you still have that whisky?”

This is dangerous, Max thinks, this is very dangerous. But he nods, automatically getting two glasses and the bottle, and warns Morse to wait until he’s caught up.

Morse smiles, his eyes lighting up, and that’s all it takes to throw Max back in at the deep end. It’s less of an ache in his chest, and more a bolt of dizzying pain across his entire body.

He’s such a _fool_.

Unsurprisingly, he wakes up to empty bed. It’s a bit like being kicked in the teeth.

He closes his eyes again. He doesn’t think he can take any more of this. Push and pull. Wind up and wind down. Together and apart. Morse just breezes into his life when he feels like it, when he needs something—stitching up or a quick fuck—and back out again with no thought at all. The worst part is Max can’t hate him. He physically can’t. He can’t just be casual, either. He can’t stand it when Morse appears in front of him, coldly professional, and calls him _Doctor._ He looks Max in the eye and talks as if they’ve never so much as had a drink together. And then he’s sneaking into the garden with that smile on his face and his sleeves rolled up and Max silently forgives him, for absolutely everything, a hundred times from the garden gate opening to the sun coming up, each and every time without fail. He feels absolutely pathetic. He knows, he _knows,_ he shouldn’t feel like this; that Morse, of all people, shouldn’t make him feel like this. But he does.

He twitches back the curtains a little, squinting in the sudden brightness. It looks like rain. Because of course it does.

&

October, and the summer is long gone. Blue is replaced with grey. Rain circles Oxford. The gate goes unopened. And the yellow flowers _wither_.

Nothing much else happens.

Which is largely why faint alarm bells start ringing in his head when someone starts frantically knocking on his door in the middle of the night. He expects Morse has been stabbed, or something, and he’s absolutely just going to take him to hospital and leave him there.

Imagine his surprise when he opens his door to find Peter Jakes standing there, cigarette in his shaking hand.

Max’s brain is coming up with nightmare scenarios faster than he can keep up with, so he tries to think of normal reasons why a policeman (who is very distinctly not Morse) would be hammering on his door at gone midnight.

Jakes doesn’t seem to be bleeding out, but if he was, he would’ve just gone to A&E like everyone else with a brain. He might’ve found a body, but his first port of call absolutely would not be Max. And if it was, he would’ve called. Something, he decides, is very, very wrong.

The only normal thing about this is that Jakes is smoking, which is equally reassuring and not reassuring at all.

“Thank _christ_ ,” he says, and Max sees Morse standing behind him.

So he was right.

He steps aside to let them both in, moving slowly as if trying to trick the panic out of setting in.

Jakes is talking too quickly and Max is getting maybe one in three words and then none at all as Morse steps inside.

His hands. He’s holding them awkwardly, a hair’s breadth too far away from his body to be comfortable, and at first Max thinks it’s nothing, the most he’s ever hurt his hands is a couple of tiny scrapes. But the light falls on them (a drop of whisky running down his wrist, the lamp turning it gold and Max’s eyes utterly glued to it; Morse catching him staring and slowly licking the booze away, looking up at him, a devilish grin on his face) and they’re _covered_ in blood. Max barely stops himself from swearing out loud.

“You haven’t killed anyone, have you?” He half-jokes, because that would be the most logical conclusion, wouldn’t it? They’re both coppers, they could probably cover up a murder quite well, and they only need Max to dispose of the body, which isn’t an ideal situation to be in, really, but if not, all the better, and _Jesus Christ_ why won’t either of them just _say something_.

Jakes looks at him in a way that is both relieved and borderline suicidal, which is a tricky line for anyone to tread. “It was fine and then…” he trails off hopelessly, lighting another cigarette off the end of his old one. “Glass everywhere.”

Max looks over at Morse, the faint alarm bells morphing into fully-fledged air raid sirens. He’s leaning against the wall, something he knows full well Max can’t stand, staring at the floor. “What do you mean?” Morse looks up to catch his gaze. His eyes are hollow. “Never mind. If you’re staying, there’s a bottle of whisky down the side of the sofa. Try not to burn anything.” Jakes nods weakly. And Max grabs Morse by his bicep and drags him into the bathroom.

There’s so much glass in his hands, jagged shards buried in the soft skin of his palms and cutting into his fingers. Max wants to cry. Instead, he cleans the blood off as best he can, as always. He tweezes the glass out, piece by piece, and drops it onto the nearest towel. Morse’ll need stitches and they’ll need to be quite a lot more delicate than what he can deal with now. He wishes he was drunk.

“Your bedside manner’s getting better,” Morse says quietly, after a while. “Even if you don’t need it."

It’s like a hole has been punched straight through his chest. He accepted the end. It was inevitable. So why does it feel like the beginning again?

“Clearly, I do.”

Silence. A massive, awful silence.

“What happened?” Max asks, not expecting an honest answer.

“Broke a glass, tried to pick it up.” Morse shrugs. It might be the light, but it looks like there are tears in his eyes.

Even though he was expecting it, he still feels disappointed. And quite like slapping Morse into next week. “Which is why Jakes is currently drinking himself into a coma in my living room.”

“That’ll be it.” Morse is many things, but a good liar is not one of them.

They both hear the front door open and shut. Not comatose, then. Or at least not yet.

“If you’re worried he’d hear—”

“No,” Morse cuts him off quickly. “That’s what happened. I think I just… panicked.”

“Right.”

‘What do you want me to say?” He snaps, suddenly standing, knocking Max backwards. “That I threw it at him? That I picked up the pieces and stuck them in my hands individually? That I did it to have some reason to see _you_?” He spits the word out like it’s poison. “You’re not that important.” A tear spills down his face and he hastily wipes it away with the back of his hand.

Max takes a deep, shaky breath in. It’s like rats are eating him from the inside out. “I know. I know,” he says in a voice he knows to be soothing. It never seems to _end_.

Morse swallows, hard, visibly pulling his anger back. He just looks scared. “Fuck me?”

“ _Jesus_ , Morse!” Emotional whiplash, indeed.

“Too much?” His voice is desperate in the same way a drowning man is desperate for air. “Take me to bed, then.”

“ _No_.” He takes a few steps back, bumping his shoulder against the door. “Not when you’re like this.”

“You don’t… want me?”

Of course he does. But he wants _his_ Morse—with that blush in his cheeks, that grin on his face, and basking in the sun, surrounded by yellow flowers. “No.”

Morse seems to shrink down into nothing. “I want to go home.”

“Just sit down.” The ache spreads from his chest into every cell in his body. He just wants it to end.

“I’m not asking you to marry me.” Morse takes a step towards him and he feels a bit of his soul die. “I’ll be gone when you wake up.” He has the nerve to be pleading, genuinely pleading, with that as if it’s what Max _wants_. “You don’t have to love me, Max.”

No, he doesn’t.

No, he fucking doesn’t.

&

Two weeks later and November has the corpse of summer hanging limply between its jaws. Max finds himself standing in his garden, framed by a halo of golden light spilling out from his kitchen. He can’t see the stars for the clouds.

Morse is there too, powerfully drunk at nine in the evening, reeking of the pub. He’s been crying. His hands are more or less healed and Max feels like replacing the garden gate and those long-dead yellow flowers with a brick wall and barbed wire.

“You need to stop this. It’s not… good for you.”

“You are.” Morse sounds like he might start crying again. “Good for me.”

Max feels a hot flash of annoyance at what would’ve once completely melted him. This is where everything needs to end or he’s going to go insane. “No, Morse. I’m not.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You should—”

“Please!” It’s almost hysterical. “Please don’t tell me to leave.” Morse is looking at him with eyes so sad, had he done it even a month earlier, Max would’ve crawled through Hell to make sure he never felt that way again. “I couldn’t… Anyone else. Not you.”

Because he’s the only one who never said no. Because he’s the only one who always forgave Morse without even being asked to. Because he’s the biggest fool on this godforsaken planet.

“Go home,” Max says, trying to detach. “Sleep it off.”

“No!” Morse suddenly shouts, and Max’s gaze darts to the neighbour’s house and back again. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” He says, quieter, his voice shaking. He wraps his arms around himself, grabbing his shirt sleeves so hard his knuckles turn white. He looks so fragile. “I love you.”

And Max’s heart shatters completely. “You don’t mean that,” he says softly. And he doesn’t, surely. He can’t.

“I do.” He seems so genuine Max almost believes him. (almost).

“Don’t do this to yourself.” God, this is giving him a headache.

Morse’s face falls. “But…”

He could laugh. Except it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.

“So that’s it?” Morse says, something in his voice Max realises is despair.

“Go home, Morse.” It feels like saying goodbye, for good.

He ends up calling a cab because, frankly, he doesn’t trust Morse in this state. He gives the driver what he hopes will cover the fare and apologises in advance, saying something vague about him being drunk and someone dying. Morse looks out the rear windshield as the car pulls away. He looks _heartbroken_. Something in Max snaps clean in two.

He lies in bed, listening to the rain.

Naively, he thought it wouldn’t hurt. It was meant to be one night, and one night never hurt anyone. No, what hurt was every night and every morning after.

A specific brand of whisky Max always thought of as _theirs_ , always pouring a double for Morse because Max knew he’d be on his second by the time the garden gate opened, their jackets draped on the back of garden chairs or hanging side by side in the hall, the first aid box he keeps close by the back door, the bright yellow flowers dancing under the scorching summer sun.

Morse wearing Max’s dressing gown the morning he stayed over. Max pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. The light dancing on their skin, turning them to gold.

Not giving Morse one of those roses because he might’ve seen it as romantic which was really all it was going to be. Cleaning Morse up every time he got hurt and ignoring the ever-present aching in his own chest. Morse feeling guilty enough about shagging some girl that wore lavender and vanilla perfume to kiss Max until they both felt dizzy but not guilty enough to get her off his collar. Morse clinging to Max like a drowning man as he tried to ease him into the back of a taxi.

Not having to love him, but doing it anyway.

Because he had it _bad._ Right from the start. All he wanted was for Morse to stay when the morning came. Just so he could pretend he was loved back.

Morse had made him tea that morning. Tea and toast, and brought it up to him in bed. They took small, scalding sips of tea and pretended to not care that the toast was burnt and Morse didn’t talk about work but about everything from flowers to music and back again. And Max had wondered if it was possible to die of happiness. And now there is absolutely nothing. An empty bed for the rest of time.

It, the slow-motion car crash that it was, was always going to end. It had to. It was inevitable. But Max never wanted it to. Not when the beginning, the real beginning, meant more to him than the entire world.

So this is it. No more whisky, no more sweetness and light, no more yellow flowers. No more Morse.

No more secrets.

Max has always fucking hated secrets.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by me listening to cruel summer by taylor swift for about a week on repeat and having some sort of breakdown <3 hope u enjoyed xxx


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